


Beauty, Chaos

by flamboyantgentleman



Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Angst, DEEPLY EMBEDDED METAPHORS, M/M, Thorki - Freeform, Thunderfrost - Freeform, brought to you by my cruel relentless loki muse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-14
Updated: 2012-05-14
Packaged: 2017-11-05 08:39:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/404446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flamboyantgentleman/pseuds/flamboyantgentleman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thor and Loki face their last moment together before the Elders seek retribution for Loki's crimes - there is something Thor wants, and he finds it in the beautiful, terrible chaos that he has come to call his brother.</p><p>In which little is said, but much is given.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beauty, Chaos

**Author's Note:**

> this is what i do when my girlfriend falls asleep instead of livestreaming thor with me  
> also my loki muse is _tearing me apart_

Thor has never been one to deny the beauty of chaos – the sharp warmth of adrenaline, the electric crackle of thunder overhead that wracks his veins and brings the virgin white of lightning upon the battlefield – but never has it been more beautiful than it is now, wrought in the silent, terrible grace of Loki’s step.

His movements speak decay, fingertips whispering destruction as they graze Thor’s against the smooth blue aura of the tesseract’s angular form. His white skin stretches, screams in the cosmic passage, bright with death and starlight. He is broken and silver and beautiful, returning finally to the gilded spires of Asgard – it is not enough, not _home_ , and Thor can see reflected in his eyes a hundred burning winters he wishes upon their world. They are pale and cold and perfect like him, like the sharp edges of his intellect that bruise Thor even now.

Thor announces no arrival, makes quick work of Loki’s return to his golden world. The Elders speak in harsh tones, but they have not seen beautiful chaos in the curve of Loki’s wrist, in the dip of his spine. And Thor – Thor knows as well as his brother that they will burn the chaos out of Loki with words and knives and raw, animalistic _hate_ , and for all his selfishness he _needs_ this one last time.

The thin blue veins that carve Loki’s wrist remind Thor of Yggradsil, of the path of life and lies that Loki has wound so intricately, so expertly around all of them, and as the last of the starlight leaves Loki’s eyes he thinks that he has failed his brother most terribly. It was not protection from the world that Loki needed, Thor thinks as he slips his fingers from the vein-trees to his brother’s smooth jaw, not protection from the snakes in the garden or the women of the court or even from his own father; Loki, awful, beautiful Loki only ever needed protection from himself.

He unclasps Loki’s binding mask with steady fingers, and even yet he can feel a phantom tremble dancing along his spine. The silence between them is thick, silver, woven with a million unsaid words, and he knows as he always does that he must be the one to break it with brute, golden sincerity.

“Speak, brother mine,” he says, and the words feel sandpaper-rough on his tongue.

Loki on looks at him, through him, eyes like the moss that curls swollen tendrils along the great branches of Yggdrasil.

There is the sharpness of a question there, an ever-calculating presence that Thor answers without hesitancy.

“The Elders will have their time. I want mine.”

There is a rough possessiveness in his voice, double-edged with the reluctant finality of his resolve. Loki must know as well as he does that cruel punishment is not what he desires for him; no, he will always harbor a spark of golden, _foolish_ hope for the brother forgotten. But this – this was never his choice to make.

“What of mine is yours to take?” The words are quicksilver, slicing the air with cool resentment. Thor expected this, fostered it even, and yet it still cuts to the bone.

“You are my brother.” _I am owed your love_ , he thinks, and somewhere deep beneath Loki’s tenfold illusions, he knows he has it.

Loki’s eyes flash at the statement, and it is not so much hate as denial that presses the thin line of his lips. “I am not.”

“We are brothers sewn not by blood, but by the roots of fate itself. Is that not stronger than the bond of kinship?” There is a sliver of desperation, now, building rumbling thunder on the horizon.

“Fate robbed me of what was mine, and it will rob you of whatever it is within me that you believe to be yours.” A serpentine hiss punctuates Loki’s words, and Thor aches for anything but the truth.

 _Lie to me_ , he thinks, and it is bitter and heart wrenching and so awfully _beautiful_.

“You reap the harvest of your own sins, brother,” he says instead, and he can feel the last word curve like a lie on his lips. “Is it not in my right to grant you a moment of reprieve before the storm?” Storm, he thinks, is an awful (beautiful) word to use, and it feels as powerful on his tongue as Mjolnir in his sure grasp. It is also a selfish word to use, echoed with his own need in these final moments of brotherly solitude.

“Have what you want from me,” Loki says, and it is suddenly tired and – not soft, but sloping, like the weary bend of his shoulder.

Thor’s fingers linger on Loki’s jaw, and he can feel the way it slacks in spiritless resignation against the warmth of his flesh. He chooses his words carefully, lacing them with something soft and raw and wholly _forgiving_. “It is not mine to take, but yours to give.”

Mother had always said those words, warm as she was with her hands gentle and maternal on her sons’ shoulders. She spoke not of possessions, but of love. “It is not yours to take,” she would remind Loki of the All-Father’s gilded affections, or Thor of his courted maidens’ sweet interests, “but theirs to give.”

Thor can see the recognition now, lighting like a glimmer in the depths of Loki’s green, green eyes. Love – _love_ is what he needs so desperately, love from the boy that died with Odin’s lies, love from the brother he never really had. Love like the chaos in the curve of Loki’s wrist and in the dip of his spine, and it is all he has left to give.

The silver-tongued god says nothing, his slender fingers coming to rest in cool, sure assent against the masculine curves of Thor’s armor. _You have always had it _– and they are not words, but they are as sure and shapeless in the space between them.__

Now, now in the final moments of brotherhood it is Loki’s to give, as a last acknowledgement of the terrible, beautiful chaos that has carved their bond into Yggdrasil’s wise branches.

He palms the smooth, silver metal of Thor’s armor, and Thor reaches to sift silken, blue-black strands between his calloused fingers. The movement between them is sudden, sparking, igniting the ties of fate that have thawed the ice in Loki’s heart to a steady, bittersweet hum.

Their lips meet in a single, silver moment, and Loki tastes of chaos.

 

****

. . .

 

(When it is all over, and even the memory of the memory of the taste of Loki’s mouth on his has faded to a dull gold, his mind traces the moss-grown memories of their brotherhood and finds not chaos, but the soft, silver stillness of peace.)


End file.
